Summer 2023 Friend Visitors

We’ve had most of our immediate family for a visit over the last few years since we made Alaska our permanent home, but we had our first set of FRIEND visitors!

Pat is one of Justin’s buddies from high school, from the famed Seton Hall Prep Framily, which means that these 2 have been friends for 30 years!

Pat actually visited Alaska before we even had! He’s come over the years with his family—particularly his dad—to fishing, and he even worked on the Kenai Peninsula one summer. This was his 10th trip!!! Pat was ecstatic when we moved here; in fact, he was the first person Justin told about buying our cabin. Now he had more of a reason to drag his family to Alaska! I love Bri (his wife) and have known her for 20 years now, but she is admittedly not into the outdoors as much as Pat is. But Pat is determined to turn his 3 daughters into outdoorswomen!

We had to take turns entertaining because of our guiding schedule, but it worked out well. Justin joined them for a full day in the park and outside the park, while I eeked out one hike with them before they departed. And we always had meals together at night, which included smores and some intense Exploding Kitten card playing (never have we met our match until playing against the ruthless Flaherty girls).

In an effort to keep practicing filleting salmon, I asked Pat to give me a lesson while we was here. We had a whole salmon that we received at our community’s health fair in November (#onlyinalaska). It was perfect because Pat’s family loves eating salmon, especially fresh from Alaska, so it was a win-win.

Here is my public announcement that if you are thinking about visiting next summer, get your dates to me by November 1 before I open up the yurt to rent to the public! Just imagine, you can turn your children into wild animals of Alaska! (Picture below of the girls acting like the moose that stripped our aspen tree of bark this spring!)